


Mayhem of a Harmless Sort

by prodigalDaughter



Category: Cain Saga and Godchild
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Gen, M/M, godchild ending spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 05:46:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2056035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prodigalDaughter/pseuds/prodigalDaughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“No-body’s dead,” he said eventually, softly. “All evening, and no-body’s dead.”</p>
<p>A very brief thing, written for the 2013 tumblr Godchild Secret Santa, to the request "a fluffy fic, or piece of art, with riff and cain enjoying their christmas together." There's also a drawing at the original post, over <a href="http://prodigaldaughteralice.tumblr.com/post/71050969082/oh-god-please-do-open-in-a-new-tab-this-thing-is">here.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Mayhem of a Harmless Sort

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how to get in touch with the person it turned out to be for anymore, so I hope they don't mind my posting it here. I'm putting it here in part because all I have posted here is Homestuck, and since I haven't been reading that or writing for it in a while I should probably change that....

The quiet in the house was a striking contrast from the bustle of only a few hours before, as Riff made a thoroughly unnecessary last round of the halls. The lamps were all put out, everyone downstairs long abed, snatching every minute of rest they could before the coming holiday. The goose would be bought in the morning; no need to worry about that just yet. Christmas Eve had somehow passed without disaster.

Neil had filled the house with extended family— related only through marriage, distant cousins several times removed, coaxed to come only by the comforts of the house and perhaps some morbid curiosity about Cain’s well-being. The house had not been so crowded in months if not years, every guest room filled with young couples and elderly matriarchs, small children packed three to a bed, young women who’d laughed too loud and too prettily at Cain’s wicked jokes. Neil knew them all, and Cain learnt their names quickly. He’d even been convinced to read poetry for the programme in the evening, watch with mild amusement the scenes put on by stiff children and over-dramatic cousins, listen as no fewer than three separate young women sang “Cherry Ripe” with only a token comment that one of them might have come up with something more seasonal to sing.

Merry had insisted upon reading her cards for the coming year, ignoring all Neil’s protests and extended family’s skeptical looks. She did not want to sing, nor to recite verse; this was what she was good at, so she would do it. The judgement of the family lifted somewhat as she predicted a year of good fortune and blessings. Good news would always be welcome, no matter how it was determined.

There were children her own age in the house for the first time since she’d come to live in it, and Cain had clearly been happy for her. Though he’d been busy, Riff had seen the gentle look in his employer’s eyes as Merry had pulled crackers with a small boy, gleefully displayed a doll she hadn’t had to be angry at her brother to get, whispered stories of her youth to shocked and fascinated girls. He’d been distracted by the end of the evening, going quiet, watching the festivities with a distracted air. Riff wasn’t sure where he’d gone; when the guests all had retired to their respective rooms, he’d disappeared from the dining room and had not made any attempt to go to bed.

The parlour was where he found him at last, drowsy and good-natured from an abundance of mulled wine, dangerously close to lighting his hair on fire where he leant by the Christmas tree. He raised an arm to beckon Riff, who obliged him by kneeling at his side.

“There’s wine left, isn’t there? Open?” he asked.  
“I believe there is, my lord. May I ask why?”  
“I don’t want to be sober tonight,” Cain mumbled, leaning against his shoulder.  
“Nor do you want to be sick at morning mass.”  
Cain made a face. “Won’t I be already?”  
“All we can do now is hope not, I believe.”

A comfortable silence fell as the candles flickered over lonely gifts, children’s toys and baskets of nuts, the few oranges left on the tree. Though he didn’t think it fair to extricate himself, seeing how comfortable Cain looked leaning on him— and, to be entirely honest, how sweet having him warm against his shoulder was— Riff reached away to gather up discarded wrappings and begin folding them neatly, to put aside for reuse or for starting the fires with. Cain shifted minutely, looked over his shoulder to watch before returning to his thoughtful consideration of the tree.

“No-body’s dead,” he said eventually, softly. “All evening, and no-body’s dead.”  
“It has been rather quiet, my lord.” It had been loud, truthfully, bustling and raucous and filled up to the brim, in a way Riff hadn’t seen since he was a boy, and even now didn’t well recall, but the only screams had been those of happy children, no blood had been spilled, and over all the mayhem had been of a harmless sort.  
“They’re a nice family. A nice people.” He was silent for a moment. “They’re not my people. They’re Uncle Neil’s cousin’s husband’s people. Cousin’s wife’s people? I’ve forgotten.”  
“They’re as much your people as some of them are to each other,” Riff pointed out. “Marriage is its own kind of blood.” Cain shook his head.  
“Sometimes I’ve wondered,” he continued, “what it would be like to have family that wasn’t mad or dead. I think it might be like this.”

Like this. A packed programme of sketches, charades, awful singing, and happy children. Neil desperately trying to rein in the tyranny of Merry, who knew the house in ways the guests didn’t, and could pop out of cupboards with awful masks on and no mercy. The piano being played alternately well and awfully, depending upon who’d taken the seat, and loud cousins with horse-laughs elbowing Cain in the side and asking how long he thought it’d be before he married. Young women fawning over Merry and what a heartbreaker she’d be when she grew, Oscar Gabriel (who had wormed his way into the house on the excuse of not being invited to his own family’s Christmas) laughing and claiming she already was. A cavalcade of questions, of music and laughter of the like this house had not seen in years— if it ever had.

“I have Merry,” he said at last, “and she is none of those things.” Neither mad, dead, nor— by blood, at least— family. Riff wondered, briefly, if Cain would ever tell her. It was unlikely. “And I have you, don’t I?  
“You do, my lord. You have me.”  
“For ever?”  
“To the end of my days and past it.”  
“For ever and ever with another ever tacked on?”  
“You really are going to be sick at morning mass, aren’t you.”

Cain’s laugh was tipsy, and the smile he shot Riff over his shoulder probably meant to be his usual rakish smirk, but had been softened by wine and by honest affection into something gentler, kinder. He turned to face him properly at last and leant in for a kiss, which Riff— thinking _alone, alone, the house has never been so full and yet we are safely alone_ — gave him, noticing dimly that his hand had found its way to Cain’s waist, and that his shirt had come untucked at some point while he was here gazing at the tree.

“Merry Christmas, my lord,” he managed.  
“Merry Christmas, my love,” Cain whispered back, and laid his head comfortably against Riff’s shoulder before drifting to sleep in his arms.


End file.
